Ask HN: What are your big plans for 2015? - <AUTHOR>

Similar to last years' threads, what is your yearly plan?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6989585
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4985473 <comment><USER2> Become a product manager (at least part-time). I was a developer for 7 years and never progressed towards PM, so I've just left my company, created my bootstrapped start-up because no-one would ever believe in me, got experience at copywriting, marketing, negociation, product roadmap planing, went to conferences, talked at some, (all of those in addition to developing the product obviously), sold enough copies _within the first year_ to make a nice living... I think I've proven my point that I'm not bad at it, as opposed to the stigma we face when we're programmers, so next year I hope to be hired in a proper company to do the same job.

<comment><USER3> Where are you based?

<comment><USER2> France (Lyon). I'm ok moving to other countries in Europe and Australia.

<comment><USER3> The company I work for will be hiring PM's in the 1st quarter. We're based in London, UK. Got an email add.? I'll send you a note when it happens if you're interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My "big plan" is to have only small plans this year, one plan at the time.

</comment><comment><USER5> \- Keep my main software R&D contract for 12 months

\- Expand my recruitment business to average x placements per y ([http://perl.careers/](http://perl.careers/))

\- Exercise 70% of all days

\- Eat 90% of my meals mindfully

\- Meditate on 90% of all days

\- Finish my dissertation and graduate my part-time MSc by July

\- After July, release an eBook OR complete the iOS developer and Data Scientist Nano degrees from Udacity

</comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Read more books (now that I have a Kindle, shouldn't be a problem)

2\. Visit Shanghai

3\. Start my work for ESA (European Space Agency)

4\. Launch a couple of projects I've been working on recently

5\. Participate in at least 3 Kaggle challenges

6\. Finish recording my album

7\. Gain some weight, do more sports

8\. Try and finish my startup project, if it turns out to be a dead-end financially, open-source it

</comment><comment><USER7> My plans for 2015 are to make progress in areas where I have a foundation and want to move along further.

1\. Write and self-publish 2 novels to launch a series. I've self-published a few things, ready to move into it more seriously.

2\. Become competent with lisp. Fooled around with it in the past, but I'd like to know what I'm doing.

3\. Become competent with deep learning / neural networks. Another place where I know the basics, but would like some proficiency.

4\. Gain enough fitness to get back into backpacking. Something I used to do a lot, but over the last several years I've been very, very lazy. Long way to go on this one. I'm wasting living in California.

5\. Work on a few different micro-documentary projects using things like Vine. I've had some ideas about this, need to put them into practice.

</comment><comment><USER8> \- Improve my health. I'm so bad at waking up early it's not even funny, much less do any kind of exercise.

\- Have a good social life. Go out on dates etc.

\- Learn a new language and stick with it. Contribute to open source if possible.

\- Earn more money. Maybe ask for another raise or ugh, I dunno.

\- Visit another country.

</comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Exercise 6 days/week.

2\. Work on one thing at a time (no more multi-tasking). This includes not doing something else while talking to somebody.

3\. Plan out when to do work the day it's assigned, and don't leave it to the last minute.

4\. Meditate daily.

5\. Minimize distractions. That is, no reddit, less Facebook, Twitter, and HN.

I guess those are more goals than plans, but same idea.

Edit to add: get into shape to run a marathon in late 2015 or early 2016. I ran one last year, but I've lost most of my progress this year.

<comment><USER10> If your location permits it, I would really recommend cycling to work. That is a really easy way to get daily exercise in. (Plus its a very efficient way of getting around some cities, if you don't mind bending the rules).

I should try your list as they are all things I feel I ought to do more of (or less of in the case of 2 and 5).

<comment><USER9> As a college student, that wouldn't help too much, as it's at most a 15 minute walk walk to class.

And shipping my bike across the country would probably be more expensive than a good pair of running shoes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I want to work in as much different countries as I possible can. Best case scenario: 12 countries (or locations) in 12 months. I want to see how companies and people work outside of Germany and gain the best possible insights, while helping as good as I can with my skills. The end result might be a book or "just" a blog. So, if anyone of you knows a neat company or agency, which might be able to help with that idea, tell me. ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> 1\. Hopefully ship a couple of big internal projects that would basically make me a product manager.

2\. find the courage to actually launch a silly viral website I've done in my spare time. It's been sitting on my disk for a couple of months now, ready to go, but I fear the maintenance burden I'll get once launched.

3\. if the two above items flounder, retool -- in 2016 my current job will likely be obsolete, so I have to prepare for that.

<comment><USER13> What's the general idea of number 2? Colour me intrigued at least :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> \- Start to meditate regularly. \- Read more books. (Mainly philosophy, then non-fiction in general.) \- Feed my curiosity more effectively, i. e., instigate a more persistent 'truth seeker' mentality across my life. (I have little to no idea how to do that, but I guess start a diary and document every effort might help.) \- Exercise constantly two and then three days a week. \- Leave the idea-guy mindset more aside and start to work as the execution-guy more often.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've got a 2 year plan that starts tomorrow - since I've decided to quit university my plan is to bootstrap a business that would make a profit of atleast the same amount that I would have had to pay for the degree (4400 eur) in the same amount of time that I would have had to spend learning (2 years).

I'm pretty positive about my chances, though this will be my first attempt at `doing business`

</comment><comment><USER16> Nothing fancy :

\- contribute at one open source project. I use OSS so much that I feel I should give back even a little.

\- manage successfully to reach day 14 of my fasting experiment that started December 26th then continue to fast one day a week

\- finally start the side project that is bugging me since 2007 !

\- find an alternative source of income (this is sorely needed and might be provided by the side project)

\- get better at my hobby

\- Learn the Ada programming language (just because)

</comment><comment><USER17> I want to get more into HW after decade of working on pure software stuff. I bought Raspberry Pi, Arduino and couple of modules and will try to create something interesting and maybe get it into production of some magnitude.

My other big project this year is to find new home for my tiny winery: I am looking for new land to build proper facilities and acquire more vineyards as well.

</comment><comment><USER18> Reduce the time I spend staring dead-eyed at the internet. I still want to spend some of my free time programming (I'm a student) but I don't enjoy killing hours mindlessly looping through the same three or so sites.

Otherwise - get better at systems programming. Learn an ML language maybe. Study algorithms. Go to college.

</comment><comment><USER19> How big can a plan be for 13 hours and 40 minutes remaining for 2014 (in my timezone)?

I guess that would depend on the degree of preparation. Perhaps I've prepared for ever to become Master of the World at 23:59:59? That would be a big plan for 2014 :-)

</comment><comment><USER20> 1\. Read (books) for at least an hour a day.

2\. Start experimenting with quantum algorithms.

3\. Expand my social circle.

4\. Be more positive.

</comment><comment><USER21> 1.Socialise more

2.Travel more

3.Work on a OSS and on Quantum Algos (picked this up from other comments to ths thread)

4.increase my breadth while maintaing depth in the work that i do

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----

posting it here as a permanent reminder to myself

</comment><comment><USER10> React less to people and circumstances (as in don't get annoyed, upset, angry).

Finish some side project and try and get some freelance work once when I can show people the sort of things I do.

</comment><comment><USER22> 1 ) Do some serious marketing/sales on my SAS. Some very nice features there but my sales skills are lacking.

2 ) Build my house.

3 ) Develop the next SAS with a friend as opentable for my country.

4 ) Travel to Africa !

</comment><comment><USER23> Write one more book (wrote one last year)

Run a marathon (new to running, so a BIG task)

Quit my job (been three months in a job and already want to quit) and do something that throws some money at me

</comment><comment><USER24> \- Put more effort in my bootstrapped startUp (a founder just left)

\- Read a book at least one every month

\- Exercise daily

\- Launch my Startup and get Funding.

\- Quite every trace of freelance and focus on the Startup.

\- Date more

\- Work more at Nights

\- Get a hobby outside programming

</comment><comment><USER25> Don't fall into a funk.

Get married.

Take TBI Commons to the next level.

Move in to my new place and turn into a comfortable place to stay for the next 5 years.

Start something that can generate $1K passive income every month.

</comment><comment><USER26> My big plans are as follows:

\- Start my own consultancy (and resign from my comfortable, well-paid job at a big consultancy)

\- Monetize my reasonably popular yet underpromoted open source project

</comment><comment><USER27> \- Play more frizz-bee, start bike riding again and go diving more

\- Say "No" more often to working on other peoples babies

\- Buy a house

\- Actually release my (deployed) side projects to the world

</comment><comment><USER3> My aim for 2015 is to spend more time with my family. To do this will probably involve a change of job etc. But that is my main goal.

</comment><comment><USER28> 1) Make everyone around me more happier (my family, friends, clients, etc) 2) Contribute to the society 3) Work towards making my business more profitable 4) Exercise, keep fit and and healthy

</comment><comment><USER29> \- Develop a habit of healthiness with less sugar

\- Somehow be a good brother, son and boyfriend while I work excessive hours

\- Develop an exceptional enterprise app

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Last year's thread:

1\. Graduate before september so I can start my PhD position. √

2\. Date more. √

3\. Move to a better place. √

Great success!

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>=

</comment><comment></comment><comment>This Year</comment><comment></comment><comment>=

1\. Publish, publish, publish

2\. Start side-business

3\. Stop gaining weight

</comment><comment><USER30> \- Finish my book (on Docker) and do a decent job of it.

\- Learn a couple of songs on guitar (2014 failure).

\- Move flat.

<comment><USER16> Can you provide any info on your book or it's still hush-hush ?

<comment><USER30> No, it's not hush-hush (or my editor hasn't told me it is at any rate!). The working title is "Using Docker: Developing and Deploying Software with Containers". Coming out on O'Reilly next year.

As well as describing how to use Docker, it will try to explain how to use containers in the full software development workflow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Spend less time with friends and more time on programming and playing games.

<comment><USER16> Are you sure it's a good thing ? Social interaction is important for our mental health.

<comment><USER31> Why is it important? I'm very outgoing and people would consider me a social person. I also have a lot of friends. The thing is that I don't enjoy it. I see most social gatherings as a waste of time and prefer being home alone working on my projects.

<comment><USER16> Well if you don't isolate yourself completely it's not a problem, just pay attention not to become reclusive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> 1\. Launch one profitable product 2\. Finish my Arduino ultimate machine 3\. Launch one new passive income source 4\. Sleep better 5\. More family time 6\. Learn d3.js 2014 I struck out on all fronts

</comment><comment><USER33> \- Release two books \- Commit to some OSS projects \- Get a mobile app on the app store \- Get my startup side project up and running

</comment><comment><USER34> Ship on the big project that originally drove me into programming.

</comment><comment><USER35> Perhaps you mean 2015 ?

</comment><comment><USER36> \- Finish the half of the projects I started in 2014.

</comment><comment><USER37> Improve myself and enjoy life as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER38> \- Work less.

\- Make my first surf trip.

\- Learn how to dance.

\- Study German.

\- Spend more time building relationships.

</comment><comment><USER39> Pass all my math classes</comment>


Tradition for Sale: On University Architecture - <AUTHOR> https://placesjournal.org/article/tradition-for-sale/ <comment><USER2> I think that new neo-gothic campus building looks fantastic. I think it is much bolder to build something like this, than it is to build yet another swoopy glass and steel "contemporary" building, which is the norm for any institutions without any self-confidence.

Also, those buildings will age gracefully and never look stupid. We know this because there are thousands of similar buildings, from the middle ages to the revivals in the 1800s and 1900s that still don't look stupid after multiple centuries.

<comment><USER3> do they 'not look stupid' because they have been around such a long time that they have trained our sense of what we consider a beautiful timeless building to be _or_ are they actually beautiful timeless buildings?

In another 1000 year would steel "contemporary" buildings be considered beautiful or not? Is beauty a requirement for a institution? Do you want a building to be beautiful or functional? Who gets to decide what is beautiful?

<comment><USER4> Beauty _is_ one of the functions of a building. Pursuing "form over function" without considering beauty leaves you with a shantytown.

>Who gets to decide what is beautiful?

If one of the goals of a building is for people to visit it and to spend time around it and to enjoy the experience, then the community of people who will have to live with the building should have the most say about what is beautiful for them. One issue with some architects is that they don't have "skin in the game" when it comes to the buildings they design. They can come up with interesting concepts and visions that may seem appealing as a model or impressive to their peers, but if they don't have to walk by it every single day, then their opinions about what is beautiful should not be a dominating and overriding factor.

In the specific case of university donors, they have a particular vision for what the aesthetics should be, and it's their support that makes the university continue to run well and it's their personal connection to the university that makes them care. Their objectives of beauty should be more important in that particular case than a designer who will be moving on to the next project.

<comment><USER5> Have been trying to "get" a lot of modern architecture since I studied it back in the day, but much of it from the 70's on looks dated to me. Buildings like I.M. Pei's Dallas City Hall. Have to look hard to find a Guggenheim, which (IMO) has stood the test of time.

So "modern" and functionalism is great, but I'd rather they figure out something lasting before they experiment with a few $100M of my taxes/tuition/donation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the Wikipedia article on Morse College [0] (one of Saarinen's two 1962 residences lauded by this article):

> …in a modern attempt to capture the spirit of Gothic architecture, Saarinen > eliminated all right angles from the living areas. […] This resulted, > notoriously, in two rooms which had eleven walls, none of which was long > enough to put the bed against and still be able to open the door.

Is the mark of "good" architecture the degree to which it is hostile or inscrutable to its inhabitants? Even this author admits that the new colleges are an excellent execution of the Collegiate Gothic style; not only are they _livable_ spaces, they are _beautiful_ ones!

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_College)

</comment><comment><USER7> The linked article about USC's new "University Village" is pretty brutal too, calling it "Disneyland meets Hogwarts."[1] Disneyland is a good call metaphorically whenever something's elaborately fake, though I'm also comparing all these projects to the Las Vegas strip. Lavish expenditure to recreate something already done elsewhere, producing the strange feeling that it's fake (a copy), yet it's real (somebody spent the money to make it happen).

Is there no middle ground between uncompromisingly hostile modernism and ass- backwards retro-fakery?

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-usc- villa...](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-usc-village- review-20170820-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> The semiotics of Gothic architecture prize religious orders and divinely anointed kings. Notions of citizenship and universal political equality are alien to it. It's why America represented its pursuit of democracy with the new Federal style after winning its independence. Representing democratic ideals are why America chose iconography from Athens for its neoclassic buildings.

The problem with Gothic architecture in America is not so much that it looks back, but where its gaze points. It points at Earls and Dukes and the entrenchment of an entitled class.

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh come on, he answered his own question:

> To my earlier question as to why the university would pursue this course, > the easy and obvious response is that the traditionalist architecture of the > old colleges has become essential to Yale's identity...

> When the decision was made [in 1958] to add two colleges ...Yale chose to go > modern and to hire Eero Saarinen... he rose to the challenge magnificently.

> Admittedly, acceptance of Morse and Stiles Colleges was fitful. I'll confess > that when I entered Yale as a freshman in 1969 I was pleased to be assigned > to ... [a] Gothic quadrangles — and not to one of the "new" residences. > After taking Vincent Scully's course in modern architecture and learning of > Saarinen's importance...

OK, so the traditional aping of Oxbridge is an important part of Yale's branding and he himself is a testament to that. Yet he thinks they should do something essentially inauthentic? As he says elsewhere himself in this essay, dorms are different from academic buildings, and are a crucial part of branding.

MIT also built some Saarinen dorms and I remember people living in them being unhappy with them just on a functional basis.

This would be just as good as a parody of the out-of-touch humanist, except I know it's authentic.

</comment><comment><USER10> _As an engaged alumnus and attentive to such matters, I do not recall any open search for an architect for the major new buildings — the selection just happened._

This is a pernicious problem facing Ivy League institutions. Some administrator might complain bitterly that the entire process had been widely publicized and that anyway qualified architects would have known to call, but further review will discover that all publicity took place on a physical bulletin board and several private mailing lists. The faculty have not held the administration to account on numerous questionable decisions small and large, and now the bureaucrats feel they're accountable to no one.

</comment><comment><USER11> > With their new architecture, universities all too often abdicate leadership > in promoting artistic innovation as they pander to plutocratic donors.

Meh. I'd rather have this than more unlivable architectural ego-trips.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's pretty strange for Yale to have named a college after Benjamin Franklin, who had virtually no association with Yale or New Haven beyond a 1753 honorary degree — especially because he is so tightly connected to Ivy League rival UPenn. I've heard some people half-jokingly begin referring to it as "Aretha Franklin" college instead. She is at least equally qualified (her honorary degree was in 2010)!

<comment><USER13> The article gives an explanation for this.

<comment><USER14> tl;dr - a major donor ($250 million) is a Franklin fan. He cut a check for nearly half the estimated cost of the college, so they named it in honor of one of his heroes.

<comment><USER11> > tl;dr - a major donor ($250 million) is a Franklin fan. He cut a check for > nearly half the estimated cost of the college, so they named it in honor of > one of his heroes.

That's honestly way better than naming it after yet another major donor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article is spot-on. I've seen this firsthand at both USC and Wash U. in St. Louis, and the author's conclusion (that universities think building in the style of their oldest buildings will give them more donor money) is correct in my view from how the universities talk about it.

It's sad that top private universities today are so revenue-focused that they're okay with dropping any semblance of innovation when it comes to architecture and design. But these universities don't care about their architecture schools - those schools don't put out enough rich alumni to bring in the cash.

At USC a few years ago, the architecture school was stuck with old (and few) 3d printers - I don't remember the model, but students complained and got nowhere with the faculty as far as better equipment. Next door, the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy of Arts, Technology, and Business of Innovation (read: try to make startups) opened their first class with a whole lab of 3d printers and laser cutters, including a Form 1 (which was quite nice at the time for the price). The school doesn't take architecture seriously. And I don't see how that would change anytime soon.

<comment><USER16> American universities being fairly conservative architecturally is hardly a new development. Look at how popular faux-Gothic is at any Ivy League school. They are all full of modern buildings trying to look like Oxbridge.

<comment><USER15> Absolutely, it's not a new thing. I don't mean to be implying it's a new development, or limited to these schools. Just expressing how sad and frustrating it can feel as an architecture student at a good university. It's talked about a lot among students, and I liked this article for sharing it among a wider audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I went to the University of Utah for my undergrad degree. Smack dab in the middle of campus is a looming Brutalist monstrosity in the form of the BEHS Building [0]. Students often joke that there must be some sort of horrific psychology experiments happening behind those "barred" window frames. One problem withe the U of U's architecture is that it is incoherent, a mish-mash of buildings made to whatever style seemed like a good idea at the time.

In contrast, Purdue University (where I am doing grad school) has done a great job of keeping most of the buildings as a coherent whole. There are design variations from the older Purdue Student Union [1] to the more experimental Armstrong Engineering Building [2], but the general theme of brickwork makes things generally fit together and connects the whole campus to its "1800s Midwestern college" roots. It's a pleasant place to be and I think the architecture contributes to a sense of community.

The author of the article is I think extremely misguided in his arguments. He seems to imply that older architecture forms and traditions have no place in a "forward-looking" "globalized future", as if the local traditions and practices of a space have to all be eroded away into a future of glass/steel boxes in the style of international airports -- as if novelty for its own sake should be the main guiding practice.

>It is worth pointing out that in those same years the university was not only choosing to abandon its historicist architecture; it was also working actively, if belatedly, to renounce the quotas that had long limited the enrollment of diverse groups — Jews, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos — and beginning the deliberations that would lead to coeducation.

This line of argument is uncharitable at best; it implies that historical architecture is somehow permanently stained by bad practices done during that time period. It's the same sort of hand-wringing arguments you see about how games like "Cuphead" that use an old-timey animation style are "unsettling" because some actual old-timey animations would be considered racist in our time [3]. I'd much rather live in a world where we can take the good from the past and carry it forward, rather than seek to reinvent ourselves entirely from the last generation.

Traditional architecture is a bit of a pet issue of mine, mostly because of its public nature. I'm all for experimentation and breaking the mold in most art forms, but architecture is inherently public -- you can't easily look away from a building that's an eyesore than you could a painting. For that reason I tend to think that architecture should favor more traditional/conservative forms.

There's an interesting irony about the article, in complaining that this push for traditional architecture in colleges is being pushed by a wealthy plutocratic elite. These old styles are being pushed for because the donors like them, because they contribute to a general sense of charm and nostalgia that keeps a community cohesive. People in general have a positive attitude toward more traditional forms. If anything, it's a different sort of elite -- modern architects -- who are attempting to impose something on these campuses for the sake of their own experimentation.

[0] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Behs_uni...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Behs_univ_of_utah.jpg) [http://protophoto.com/images/modelun/DSC_5605.JPG](http://protophoto.com/images/modelun/DSC_5605.JPG)

[1] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Purdue_S...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Purdue_Student_Union.JPG)

[2] [https://abm-website- assets.s3.amazonaws.com/labdesignnews.co...](https://abm-website- assets.s3.amazonaws.com/labdesignnews.com/s3fs- public/legacyimages/RD/Lab_Design_News/Articles/2008/09/ArmstrongBuild.jpg)

[3] [https://unwinnable.com/2017/11/10/cuphead-and-the-racist- spe...](https://unwinnable.com/2017/11/10/cuphead-and-the-racist-spectre-of- fleischer-animation/)

<comment><USER17> I went to UW for undergrad and UU for grad school. UU was definitely a mish mash of whatever was modern for the time, but I would argue it was also poorly executed. In contrast, EPFL, which as a European university is immune to neo gothic architecture, did much better with whatever was modern st the time (to a pre oil embargo space ship plastic building to the most recent Swiss cheese addition).</comment></comment>


The great times they could have had: Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson - <AUTHOR> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v10/n16/paul-foot/the-great-times-they-could-have-had

<comment><USER2> "While still friendly with Caetani, Wallis forged even closer bonds with Felipe Espil, First Secretary at the Argentinian Embassy in Washington, an ardent Fascist and a representative of the savage Irigoyen dictatorship in Buenos Aires."

Hipólito Yrigoyen was a democratically elected president deposed by a military coup in 1930... That passes as fact checking these days?

<comment><USER3> His administration was responsible for extremely bloody repression that killed hundreds in Buenos Aires and thousands across Argentina. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_Week_(Argentina)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_Week_\(Argentina\))</comment></comment>


Magnetissimo: index popular torrent sites and search the local database - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sergiotapia/magnetissimo <comment><USER2> @j_s: I replied to your comment here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15910462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15910462)</comment>


Think of solid-state drives as multi-core storage - <AUTHOR> http://clipperhouse.com/blog/post/Think-of-SSDs-as-multi-core-storage.aspx

<comment><USER2> This article is too fluffy to be worthy of the HN front page. It's 267 words that explain that SSD drives are good at random I/O.

<comment><USER3> No, not just random IO, but parallel execution of requests. Rotational drives _cannot_ pipeline the requests - they _have_ to execute one request at a time. With SSDs you can send multiple requests (via NCQ), and they will be executed _in parallel_. The drives can literally satisfy multiple requests at the same time (at the moment, about four requests in practice, from my testing). That means that a single SSD drive is similar to having a striped RAID of four rotation drives, _plus_ the benefit of no seek latency.

<comment><USER4> I've often wondered why spinning hard drives don't have multiple heads per platter. For example, two heads spaced out on the same arm could conceivably cut seek times in half. Or, a second arm on the opposite side could offer similar benefits.

The head-positioning firmware would get more complicated, yes, but for the fixed cost of getting those algorithms right many multiples of increase in seek times and transfer rates would be possible, by adding arms and heads.

Perhaps the competition from SSDs will trigger some new approaches in mechanical drives, as well.

<comment><USER5> I've wondered that too (mostly about extra arms). Then I wondered how much it would cost to add an extra arm versus the cost of the drive itself. Eventually I stopped wondering.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to update your app on AppFog with Git - <AUTHOR> http://blog.appfog.com/553/

<comment><USER2> Straightforward advice, just copy and paste into the right place.

And a good reminder that hooks can be used for lots of things. I like using "say" to read a joke or something after I cap deploy</comment>


Ask HN: I want to learn a new language, tell me why I should use your language - <AUTHOR> Since a lot of language pimping gets to the front page on HN, it is obvious there is a wide, diverse, and eclectic assortment of favorites out there.
I have a new project I want to work on, but I'm not sure what language I want to use. So, I'm asking all of you, tell me why I should use your favorite language.
Languages I know and have had favorable experiences with: C Perl Erlang sh Java
Languages I know and am not a fan of: Ruby Python
Languages that I would not mind doing a full scale project in the future with: Rust C# Lisp implementations like Racket or Chicken <comment><USER2> JavaScript. People love to hate it, but I believe that that's just because they never actually bothered to learn it properly. That being said, I have developed a great deal of respect for it for its capabilities and flexibility. I assume that you probably already "know" it like most devs do, but I encourage you to go back and build something big with it. You might be surprised.

In terms of flexibility, you can use most of the major programming styles with it (Procedural, OO, Prototypical, Functional), as well as Synchronous and aSynchronous (evented) flow. You can mix them as needed. There is an IDE, debugger, and execution engine on every OS. It has matured over time (and is still being refined). It is high-level enough to make programming grunt-work bearable, but still feels intuitive for those of us who love the low-level stuff (C++ and Assembly are actually my favorites). It has closures. And websockets!!!!

Drawbacks: lack of threads and pointers. Yes, I miss them.

<comment><USER3> Clarification: WebSockets aren't part of JavaScript. But you can sort-of simulate pointers with Typed Array views.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you want to do the project to learn a language, or do you want to learn a language to do the project? Which is the real goal, doing the project or learning the language?

If the real goal is to do the project, then pick the language that makes it the easiest to do the project. "Already know it" is one part of "makes it easiest", but the other part is "stuff I don't have to write because the language and/or libraries do it for me".

If the real goal is to learn a language, do you want to learn it to expand your professional experience, or to grow your knowledge of programming? Do you want money, or knowledge?

If you want the professional experience, then you need to pick a language that you have a realistic probability of getting paid to use (unless your project becomes a product, but then you want to pick the language that makes it easiest to create _and maintain_ that product).

If you want to expand your knowledge, pick a language that is fairly distant from what you know, but still is a realistic implementation language for your project.

I know, I didn't actually answer the question...

</comment><comment><USER5> Scala. Because it combines the best of OO and Functional worlds. Martin Odersky has done something amazing. He has managed to create a language that strikes a balance between academic purism and the needs of practical business.

Haskell, Idris, Erlang, Lisp etc. are excellent languages as well. This is just my opinion.</comment>


The BBC's hi-tech failure: Don't Mention It - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2013/06/bbcs-hi-tech-failure?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/dontmentionit <comment><USER2> I've worked on smaller teams and with consultants. What I can say with confidence is that consultants/contractors tend to have a bias in that they don't care for properly architecting something and are more about hitting deliverable/feature milestones [generalization, not absolute]. I bet the BBC outsourced this..</comment>


15 open-source fonts released based on historical research from 15th century - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/anrt-type/GoticoAntiqua <comment><AUTHOR> related symposium website: [http://gotico-antiqua.anrt- nancy.fr/en](http://gotico-antiqua.anrt-nancy.fr/en)</comment>


Show HN: JSFiddle for HTTP requests - <AUTHOR> https://rest.secapps.com/f/EMJL <comment><USER2> Requires a Chrome Extension? That's too much for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> For all practical reasons, web apps cannot bend the rules of same origin policy. As a result of this the browser extension is required to fill the gap. The extension itself is idle unless used so there is no performance hit whatsoever. In terms of privacy, the extension only hooks itself in our own web pages and nowhere else so in theory it is less invasive then adblock plus or pretty much any other standard browser extension these days.

So while this is annoying we have to either use this or package the whole app with Electron or something which I believe will be less useful for the majority of people.

As a side note, future version can be backed by our own proxy so that you don't have to install any browser extension but unfortunately you will loose some of the flexibility such as testing local web apps.

<comment><USER3> Just a thought, the friction using Electron _might_ create for the vast majority of people in the _future_ is preconditioned on potential early adopters trying it _now._ The feedback here from potential early adopters is that installing an extension to allow violating same origin policy is _blocking_ consideration.

On the one hand, a browser extension may be the simplest thing that might work. And it probably would work if there was an established relationship of trust (and probably why it works for your team). Out beyond the bounds of your team, there is no basis for trust and installing a browser extension that goes around browser security doesn't make much sense when people have not yet seen a reason why they should use the site.

It's worth noting that JSFiddle does not require a browser extension to allow unsafe behavior and the comparison may set expectations that cannot be readily met.

Finally, people might be more engaged and therefore likely to install the extension if the link was to a landing page that explained what the product is, provided technical details of how it works, provided technical details of the extension, and provided examples of successful use before they were taken to the interactive demo...if the demo ran in a sandbox on your server without an extension that would be even better.

Well, I said 'finally' but I took one more look at the site and the names of the people getting shoutouts do not inspire trust in an extension that wants to circumvent same origin policy. They may be nice people and white hats, but how would I know?

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. A desktop app is certainly something we are considering but we want to do it right hence why we have not released one just yet.

In terms of the shouts - this is just a joke :)

<comment><USER3> The insider joke sort of raises a question about who the product is built for...which is probably a central theme of my earlier comment. Installing a Firefox extension solves the developer's technical problem but does so before it is clear to a _potential_ user that it might possibly in theory solve one of their problems.

It is worth considering what "doing it right" might mean. From a business and technical perspective, these are could be different things: e.g. the shiny code award versus improving business metrics.

<comment><AUTHOR> Again, appreciate your feedback.

Doing it right means that just because you can do something it does not mean that it is the right thing. In the case of this app, it was a deliberate design choice to build it as it is and we are planning to make it into a desktop app soon in order to make it easier for people to use it and benefit from the features we have worked so hard to implement.

There is a clear trust problem with browser extensions but I will argue that this is even more so for desktop applications due to the extended access permissions they get. For example, our chrome extension can send requests bypassing the same origin policy but beyond that it is safe as it will not read or, even worse, encrypt your files and photos due to malware. Postman is a desktop app these days so you trust that the developers are doing the right thing to protect their update channel but should you really? Transmission.app was compromised easily it seems so why not Postman (as an example of a tool solving similar problem)?

My point is that somewhere someone needs to trust the software and in my professional opinion the browser security model is far superior than what you get with desktop apps so the choice from my perspective is easy.

Bridging the two worlds sounds to me at least a logical conclusion but there have to be compromises from either side.

<comment><USER3> I agree it was a deliberate design choice and one that is supported by technical rationals. In the current form of presentation, based on this thread I'm not sure there are strong 'sales' rationales supporting the design decision (and here design is not just technical).

Might be useful to go through the exercise of creating some hypothetical users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One of the authors here. Let me know if you have any questions. I would love to answer them.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a pre-configured fiddle which exploits a vulnerability in Wordpress. The readme contains some instructions how it works but it is plug and play.</comment></comment>


In 1986 Microsoft advertised Windows was available "except in Nebraska". Why? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f2d91n/in_1986_microsoft_windows_advertising_stipulated/ <comment><USER2> Save you a click...

"Windows was available in Nebraska. This commercial is a parody of other commercials that, for legal reasons, had to exclude Nebraska. That line in this commercial is a wink and a nod to that.

So what was up with those commercials being parodied?

Prior to 1991, all 800 numbers were carrier-specific. Because of the mixed-up telephone system the US had after breakup of Bell, this meant that to call from one side of the country to another (such as on an 800 call), you may have to cross several carriers. This could get expensive.

To limit this, companies with 800 numbers got wise and centralized in the middle of the US. Due to its central location, Nebraska ended up the destination of many call centers for the, on average, cheaper 800 call rates. So companies moved their call centers to Nebraska for financial reasons.

But why did that make offers void? Because this 800 system could not successfully route in-state and out-of-state calls until 1981, when AT&T developed the tech to do so.

So throughout the 60s, 70s, and early 80s, the offers were void to Nebraska callers because they literally could not make the phone call.

As dumb as this sounds, remember: until the government stepped in in 1983, phone companies wouldn't even allow consumers to own their own phone!

As an aside, there are still a lot of call centers in Nebraska, but the restirctions on 800 numbers being loosened has created a long, slow exodus of such jobs.

Refs: [https://www.ringcentral.com/blog/the-history- of-800-numbers/...](https://www.ringcentral.com/blog/the-history- of-800-numbers/amp/")

<comment><USER3> Ma Bell had some ill ill communication. Those were the days, when the real paperclip payphone trick still worked. I'm not even sure pay-phones still exist in the Western world unless they're Tardises.

Btw, here's a video from her vault about an actual cutover done in 45 seconds with a few dozen folks with big garden cutters: [https://youtu.be/saRir95iIWk](https://youtu.be/saRir95iIWk)

PS: I'm so old, I remember the days of operators, telephone books and fingers doing the walking. :) Speaking of old meets new, I recently used an antique rotary phone that's built into a brass end-table to diagnose an Xfinity VOIP call issue. It still works.</comment></comment>


Nine Cool Manufactured Houses - <AUTHOR> http://stylecrave.com/2008-11-07/prefabulous-9-amazingly-modern-factory-built-homes/

<comment><USER2> The Ray Kappe RK1 LivingHome looks pretty good, but the rest are definitely underwhelming to me. Even the RK1 suffers from some problems, such as a design made without reference to the site its on - so things like views and solar orientation will potentially suffer greatly. Also problematic is the flat roof which is never a good idea for long-term leak and maintenance avoidance. As good as the wood siding looks in the picture now, it will not hold up well and will look terrible in a few years and create a big maintenance problem.

I think the key to making the prefab promise work is to develop a kit of parts that can be assembled in a custom way for a specific site and client, thus optimizing functional requirements, views and solar exposure, and ideally integrating the house with the topography of the site (if the site is sloping) rather than building a very unattractive platform to put the house up on.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting to note how much light matters in a well designed house - it seems that the position of windows are one of the major architectural feats to make these houses great.

<comment><USER4> Helps people ignore the fact they all look like big boxes. That being said, the designers have done well with their limitations, so I agree.

<comment><USER5> Boxes can be good:

[http://www.iaacblog.com/digitaltectonics/wp- content/uploads/...](http://www.iaacblog.com/digitaltectonics/wp- content/uploads/2008/01/mies_farnsworth-house_blog.jpg)

<comment><USER6> You really think that looks good? Looks like living in a fish tank to me.

One thing that I don't get about "modernist" home design is all the big multi- use rooms. I hate that. I like separate rooms. Notice how it would be very uncomfortable for two people to live in any of these places. No privacy.

Also, many small rooms is energy efficient. Traditional English homes have a couple small rooms, with basically just enough room for two or three to sit around a very small fireplace or stove. Point being you can very efficiently heat just the small room.

I think these big, open space rooms are trying to evoke traditional Japanese design. But because they don't have ceiling to floor shoji screens they miss the whole point. Shoji are used to break up the space, achieve privacy, and also only heat a small space contained in a box of screens.

<comment><USER7> "Notice how it would be very uncomfortable for two people to live in any of these places."

Two unrelated people, maybe. A married couple wouldn't have any trouble (unless the marriage itself was having trouble, of course).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Beautiful houses—has the modular house stigma worn away in the past few years? Because it should.

</comment><comment><USER9> Definitely dig the Michelle Kaufmann homes. Her website is awesome in the sheer volume of information it has. Most prefab home sites seem to just have pictures and a phone number, whereas she has detailed pricing and videos and testimony and talks a lot about sustainable design and self-sufficiency.

Her story sounds like a good one for the YC crowd too. She and her husband were looking for their own house and couldn't find anything they liked, so they designed their own home and the business just kind of took off from there. Classic case of 'building something people want', since they solved their own problem.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here in Europe, we have Huf Haus, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huf_Haus>

There's a Channel 4 programme called Grand Designs that featured a HH being built one week. Worth watching if you can find it somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER11> How much would it cost to build a little 1 BR house on your own? Any idea how to get started with something like that? How do you learn how to build a house? Is there a book?

</comment><comment><USER12> "341 square feet (which would be a mansion in Manhattan). "

If the writer meant square "meters", I would agree. But 341 square feet is a shoe box even in Tokyo.

<comment><USER13> Uhm, that's a pretty standard size for a studio apartment, and would be on the big end for a Manhatten studio apartment. Note that that model is labeled "studio".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I want a word that means "the kind of junk that Digg loves". Maybe "crapp".

</comment><comment><USER15> Rocio Romero is one of the nicest and most affordable prefabs out there. EDIT: They should have added the container houses as well.

</comment><comment><USER16> These are all nice, but the prices of them are, frankly, ridiculous.

"This green, sustainable house starts at JUST nearly a million dollars."

Are you freakin' kidding me? Let me know when you can start cranking these babies out in five figures.

Then it'll be worth something.

<comment><USER17> The Rocio Romera is about $23,000.

But I am surprised that these are so expensive. You'd think that a factory would have advantages over having guys come to a lot and building a house (imagine if we built cars that way). Maybe the volumes are too low to get much in the way of economies of scale.

<comment><USER6> Modern subdivision house construction is basically a moving assembly line.

I don't think prefab makes any sense for a premium modern house. You want to use materials like steel reinforced and chemically sealed concrete, stucco, stone, and perhaps solid hard wood. You can't feasibly transport this stuff from a factory to a building site pre-assembled. Prefab only potentially makes sense for light chintzy crap made out of wood and fiberglass, and even then on-site construction teams are very efficient at nailing together stick-wood houses on a concrete foundation so you're not going to save anything.

<comment><USER17> There are modern alternatives to concrete and wood which are cheaper. A house built of expanded polystyrene - basically a denser version of styrofoam with a hard shell over it - can be had for a materials cost of about $30K [http://manolohome.com/2008/08/11/the-habitat-for-the-21st- ce...](http://manolohome.com/2008/08/11/the-habitat-for-the-21st-century/)

I could easily see something like this becoming ultra-cheap with economies of scale. Make them in a factory and ship them in a few truckloads, then snap them together almost like legos.

This is not the only alternative to wood and concrete. If you look around, a lot of people are working on modern (or not so modern) alternatives.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Spam Peaked at 200 Billion per Day in 2008 - <AUTHOR> http://www.circleid.com/posts/20081217_spam_200_billion_per_day_2008_cisco/ <comment><USER2> I totally stopped counting when my junk folder got to 100 billion.</comment>


Do We Create Shoplifters? - <AUTHOR> https://unintendedconsequenc.es/do-we-create-shoplifters/ <comment><AUTHOR> The rise in the popularity of self-checkout is shown to also spike incidents of shop lifting from people who were unlikely to shop lift given that defrauding a machine can feel quite different to defrauding... well, a person. With all the discussion on HN about Amazon Go and shops using CV to handle self checkout, thought this would be a great share.

<comment><USER2> Makes me think about business models differently. There's both the revenue / cost part of a business model and also the human behavior shift that happens. I get why the companies make these choices. They aren't required to think about externalities.</comment></comment>


Open plan offices are a nightmare - <AUTHOR> http://jonblack.org/2013/01/29/open-plan-offices-are-a-nightmare/

<comment><USER4> I've enjoyed working in an open-plan office until recently, mostly because of our growth.

As I write this the person next to me is on the phone having a distracting conversation (about one of our projects), someone is engaged in a dramatic battle with the nearby printer, two guys across the aisle are making jokes about a difficult vendor, some guests arrived, and it also sounds like someone is playing frisbee with plates in the kitchen, without much success.

At the moment my headphones can't help and serve only a symbolic function. Instead of fighting the waves of distraction I decide to roll with it an refresh HN...

<comment><USER5> I also find same-project talks really distracting. And the most complicated thing is that those talks are needed. It is easy to request someone to use headphones instead of speakers but, how could I request other people not to work on their assigned tasks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can't see the article - site is down. So what I write here is based solely on the premise of the headline and existing comments on HN.

I work for a co-working space in London, which is like an open plan office taken to the extreme. Before that I worked in a variety of environments (I'm in my 30s), including public sector 'one-office-per-person' through to agency '3-people-per-desk' type situations, and working from home as a freelancer.

Criticisms about working space often come down to 'the garden on the other side of the fence would be easier to work in'. If you work from home, you miss having people to have coffee with at lunch. If you work in a crowded office, you miss having 2 hours of unbroken flow. So the best offices try to combine a bit of everything - quiet space, play space, etc.

Some people talk about the 'email-only' office like the Holy Grail of Offices. But it's not - it's cold, impersonal and unfriendly. It often results in unnecessary arguments resulting from people misinterpreting something. So a culture of "speak, don't write" is definitely a good thing, as long as there are some rules about when it's OK to talk to someone.

The problem is whether people respect the rules. We try to follow the headphone rule - if I'm wearing headphones, don't interrupt me unless the building is about to burn down. The corollary - if I'm not wearing headphones, feel free to walk up and talk to me.

So it's as much about culture as it is architecture, and that's something that often gets overlooked.

<comment><USER7> > Criticisms about working space often come down to 'the garden on the other > side of the fence would be easier to work in'.

Yep.

There are 150 people on our floor, all open plan. The partitions are only 1m high. It's not a problem. Some people cope fine without even needing headphones. I probably wear headphones 50% of the time. It's relatively quiet but I've learnt to zone out of the background noises.

Likewise I've worked from home, worked in cramped "5 people to 2 desks" conditions, in vast cube farms in the US (with 8ft high cube walls) with 400 people per area. All have their pros and cons. Distractions come in all forms, IM software, street noise, email notifications, people having conversations right next to your desk, other 'phones ringing, etc.

You just learn to adapt to what you've got and cope with it.

<comment><USER6> I think you can try to improve it. However, too often people do use the environment as an excuse - "I couldn't hit the deadline because Geoff was typing too loudly".

There's also an element of the cultural perceptions of offices. "Important people have their own offices. I want to be perceived as important. Therefore, I must have my own office."

<comment><AUTHOR> People ineed use it as an excuse, but sometimes it's a valid point that's disregarded because others, especially when it's a consensus, don't agree that the environment causes a problem. You end up with people being labelled as "anti-social misfit loners".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I work at a company which has open areas capable of holding from 4 to perhaps 20 people. The desks are on wheels. You choose where to work, where to put your desk, who to put your desk next to.

There are offices available, and if you want to you can put your desk in one. Few people do; the social environment is _really_ important.

Mobility and choice make a huge difference. People are smart and know the difference between environments that are supportive of cooperative work, and simple cheap-ass accountancy coupled with power games.

<comment> X-Istence Valve?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised that few people mention age discrimination when this topic comes up. To a large degree, that's what open-plan offices are really about. It's not explicitly presented that way, but the purpose of the brogrammer culture _is_ to exclude people-- especially women and older men.

By the time people are in their 40s and 50s, work-related health problems aren't things people joke about during an annoying project. They're things that actually happen. Your typical competent 45-year-old sees an open-plan office and says, "No thanks", knowing from experience that such environments are not only unproductive but dangerous (cardiac issues, anxiety disorders, digestive problems).

Also, it's not only the noise that makes open-plan offices hell. It's the social overload of being visible to other people. (Open-back visibility, which causes vertigo and neurological problems, is especially bad.) People are bad at multitasking-- men are especially bad at it, but suffer from a Dunning- Kruger effect-- and having to dedicate a constant slice of brain-space to the appearance of productivity, in addition to actual productivity, means that a person is forced into a state of ineffective, frustrating, and just plain _stupid_ multitasking for over 8 hours.

<comment><USER10> I've spent many projects in an "open" environment, never had bad side-effects. You can divide and conquer projects where people focus on only one task... that's efficient group multitasking. The only inefficiency comes through the time taken to synchronize with people.

<comment><USER9> You are multitasking in an open-plan office because you have two jobs that are often at odds. One is being productive. The other is appearing productive as part of what actually matters at work: managing your own social status within the group.

Even if you're not aware of it, your brain is dedicating resources to the latter of these jobs. Over 9 hours, that wears you down. You may not notice it. You may attribute your end-of-day fatigue and digestive problems to aging even though you're not actually old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looks like my website can't handle being on the front page of HN. I'm talking with my provider to try and get it resolved.

It's showing up in Google, but there's no cache link.

Apologies to those trying to access the article.

<comment><USER11> a working cache link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://jonblack.org/2013/01/29/open- plan-offices-are-a-nightmare/&hl=en&tbo=d&strip=0)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good job!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The only place I've ever seen this done well is at National Instruments in Austin. Working groups get their area cordoned off with high cube walls. I didn't work there, so I have no idea how well it functioned. But it looked reasonable to me. It had to be better than the open-plan cube-farm that I worked at.

In my old co's cube-farm, they even had a paging system where service/tech- support calls to certain individuals were blasted over the whole building. So, every 5-15 minutes you'd get a (BEEP - "Rick/John/Dale/Pam/etc, line 2" click). The paging-lady was very proper too, so she always used people's first and last name.

The HR people & bean-counters loved it because they got to watch everyone (real-time worker productivity analytics!). They never really understood why nothing ever got done on time; or why some people liked to work late, or come in early.

It was an old manufacturing business run by bunch of boomers, who hadn't been outside in decades, and who thought they'd made it a big (100 employees!) company (but in my mind it was a parody of). Another funny note, they'd built this place in response to growth, and planned/expected more growth. However, the building (new, purpose built) only had additional floor space for a few more cubes, so when the growth happened, they had to wiggle, shove, & stuff people into every nook and cranny they could find. Well, that was therapeutic.

<comment><USER12> Oh yeah, I always found JWZ's tent-of-doom inspirational.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wouldn't get shit done in an open office as someone with a degree of low latent inhibition. I can listen to music - but only lyric free while I'm working. I don't even have TV in my own house for that reason - <USER2> noise drives me insane because I cant filter any of it.

I'm not a programmer (professionally, anyways) but an analyst, which also requires huge blocks of uninterrupted time. Clients don't understand why I don't answer the phone all the time and refer them to email communication for non-major stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do the same with email. Some people don't grasp that communication has a priority. The panic I see in people's faces after ten minutes when a text message goes unreplied. If it's important, call them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The last place I worked at was an online advertising agency. My experience was similar, and managed to get things done only by coming early (often before anyone else) and wearing a good pair of headphones.

I particularly disliked the fact that some people lacking a technical background don't really understand that we often need a distraction free environment. Perhaps it's because their creative spark comes by brainstorming in a more lively environment or they have seen too many people coding at Starbucks.

<comment><USER9> Starbucks and open-plan offices are worlds apart.

In a Starbucks, it's loud, but you can tune out the noise without social penalty. No one is going to look over your shoulder or interrupt you in a coffee shop. You can put on noise-canceling headphones and sit with your back to a wall. Only a small percentage of the evil of open-plan offices is noise- related.

It's the emotional load of being visible to people who can fuck with their livelihood for any reason or no reason that makes open-plan offices terrible. People become resentful, competitive, and miserable. Those environments are said to foster collaboration, but have the opposite effect, because most people shut down at a certain level of sensory and social overload, the result being that communication grinds to a halt.

Open-plan offices are said to be egalitarian, but in practice, they increase rank discrepancies and social inequalities, because they reflect an unconditional right of management to harass and monitor subordinates.

The other interesting thing is that there's a lot of evidence suggesting that almost everyone (over 90%) will develop work-related health problems in an open-plan office. The question is how long it will take. Median seems to be about 10-15 years, making open-plan offices a legal way to say, "We don't want to hire anyone over 40".

<comment><USER15> Do you have a citation for _"there's a lot of evidence suggesting that almost everyone (over 90%) will develop work-related health problems"_?

I mean, come on, _over_ 90%? If the evidence was that clear then you would, for example, expect some worker-friendly country like France or Sweden to have banned or regulated open plan offices. As far as I know, they haven't.

I don't doubt open plan is unpleasant; nor that it can cause health problems; and I accept that the rise in health problems may be hard to measure because most companies moved to open plan. However, what you said about >90% health problems and 10-15 year worker lifetimes oversells and undermines what are otherwise very good points.

<comment><USER9> _If the evidence was that clear then you would, for example, expect some worker-friendly country like France or Sweden to have banned or regulated open plan offices. As far as I know, they haven't._

The problem is that an open-plan ban is not appropriate for all work environments. One example would be a hospital. If you can't handle the stress of an operating room (and many people can't) then you shouldn't be a surgeon. The job has intrinsic stress, and that's a factor in the compensation.

That's the fundamental problem with regulation and government intervention: it's hard to get the special cases right. An open-plan ban would be a good thing for the vast majority of white-collar office workers, but it clearly can't be applied to all work environments (medicine, military).

If I recall correctly, many countries do have lower limits on personal working space, usually in the neighborhood of 10 m^2. It'd be hard to enact a blanket open-plan ban because the concept isn't well-defined, but work space regulations are already in place.

An additional factor that is hard to regulate: the health load of an open-plan office seems to be a function of the person's age, position in the hierarchy, and the amount of personal space. Open-plan wouldn't be so bad if people had the recommended 200 SF (18.6 m^2) with barriers at their backs. At the typical 50 SF, with the person visible from behind and prone to managerial harassment, it's a catastrophe.

 _However, what you said about >90% health problems and 10-15 year worker lifetimes oversells and undermines what are otherwise very good points._

Perhaps 90% is high, but the going assumption people make when designing office spaces is that the typical open plan office (< 100 SF, open-back visibility) will increase attrition by about 10% per year for younger people and 20% for older people. How much of this one wishes to attribute to health issues, and how much to less serious garden-variety unhappiness, is somewhat of an open question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I currently work in an environment with about 40 people -- managers, developers, "operations" people -- all in an "open plan" office with half- height partitions. The distractions are constant; my field of view is always busy, someone is always talking, I can hear every phone conversation in the area, and even the coffee machine is loud. The printer is in the middle of the area, so whenever someone prints, it becomes a squeaking, beeping distraction. If I check my bank account balance before going to lunch, everyone can see; even if I have head phones on _over earplugs_ , people still interrupt me!

My productivity has fallen by at least half, probably more.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've had a couple of experiences with this type of floor plan. It's absolutely awful, especially for programmers.

Whenever someone suggests a 'bullpen' or 'open' office, I cringe, because, well, I actually want to get things done.

</comment><comment><USER18> The only good thing about an open office plan, in my opinion (as a programmer), is that my boss can see me working. That means he is forced to acknowledge, when I can't get anything done due to constant interruptions, that it's because I'm constantly being pestered to do unimportant busywork. When I'm home telecommuting, he must imagine that I'm somehow blowing off work despite the same meaningless interruptions following me around via Skype and phone calls.

Can you tell I am not having a happy experience being acquired and working at $BIGCORP?

</comment><comment><USER19> peopleware [http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects- Second-...](http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Second- Edition/dp/0932633439) goes into this a lot. i know it's an ancient classic that everyone has heard of, but it's actually still worth reading, imho (i found it much more relevant/useful/interesting than mythical man month - <USER3> sure why, it just clicked somehow).

</comment><comment><USER20> The article mentions open plan with no partitions. In my book, there is a HUGE difference between completely open like that, and open plan with low partitions. A low partition blocks a huge amount of sound, while still preventing people from being isolated. Completely open with no partition, once you get above 4 people is almost unworkable.

<comment><USER21> Agreed. Totally open office sounds like a disaster.

I'm on a team of about 10 people, mostly developers, with a few QA specialists mixed. 3 are remote.

At my office, we have normal cubes on the first floor. But, we spend 90% of our work hours in a "lab" on the second floor. The lab has one central conference table, so we're all facing each other.

So, if we need quiet time to talk on the phone or concentrate, we go downstairs. But, the default for most of the developers is upstairs. Our analyst splits about 50/50.

I really like this arrangement. I find I'm LESS distracted when I'm working in a group, even it we're just sitting around the table and not actually talking or pair programming.

Of course, we can also work from home should the need arise. Overall, my employer is pretty flexible about all of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I toured the Facebook offices in Menlo Park. It's all open plan, even Mark's desk. It's a big deal over there as they are converting the whole building to be open plan. If you want some privacy/uninterruption you can go to a few places around for it.

<comment><USER23> I just interviewed with Microsoft in Bellevue and the offices were all open- plan. I thought Microsoft was famous for every programming getting their own private office. They told me their building was the prototype and all other MS offices were converting to open plan in the near future. They could have a revolt on their hands if that's true.

<comment><USER24> Revolt == old people leave.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 404ing already. Anyone with a mirror/cache?

<comment><USER26> If you use Chrome, you can prepend the URL with 'cache:' (available in this case).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Did anyone happen to post a mirror or have a cached version? I'm getting a timeout.</comment>


Amazon Sues Alexaholic for Using Alexa API - <AUTHOR> http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/19/amazon-sues-alexaholic-for-using-alexa-api/ <comment><AUTHOR> See the law suit filing here <http://www.scribd.com/doc/34365/Amazons-Law- Suit-Against-Statsaholic></comment>


Cantonese Proverbs in One Picture - <AUTHOR> http://writecantonese8.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/cantonese-proverbs-in-one-picture/ <comment><USER2> Here is an example of a plausible conversation in Mandarin and a plausible conversation in Cantonese to show how different the two languages are, with different words (not cognate, and thus not written with the same Chinese character) in places even where you would expect English and German, or Spanish and French, to be cognate. I checked the example dialogues against dialogues posted online by native speakers of each of the languages, both for accuracy in transcribing the Chinese characters and for natural idiomatic expression in each language.

How you might write the conversation

"Does he know how to speak Mandarin?

"No, he doesn't."

他會說普通話嗎?

他不會。

in Modern Standard Chinese characters contrasts with how you would write

"Does he know how to speak Cantonese?

"No, he doesn't."

佢識唔識講廣東話?

佢唔識。

in the Chinese characters used to write Cantonese. As will readily appear even to readers who don't know Chinese characters, many more words than "Mandarin" and "Cantonese" differ between those sentences in Chinese characters.

Chinese characters still represent SPEECH (not ideas or abstract concepts) and do so in a way that is specific to the particular Chinese (Sinitic) language that one speaks. The long story about this can be found in the books The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy[1] or Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems[2] by the late John DeFrancis or the book Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning[3] by J. Marshall Unger. The book Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention[4] by Stanislas Dehaene is a very good book about reading in general, and has a good cross-cultural perspective.

Many other examples of words, phrases, and whole sentences that are essentially unreadable to persons who have learned only Modern Standard Chinese can be found in texts produced in Chinese characters by speakers of other Sinitic languages ("Chinese dialects"). Similar considerations apply to Japanese, which is not even a language cognate with Chinese, and also links Chinese characters to particular speech morphemes (whether etymologically Japanese or Sino-Japanese) rather than with abstract concepts.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Language-Fantasy-John- DeFranci...](http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Language-Fantasy-John- DeFrancis/dp/0824810686/)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Visible-Speech-Asian-Interactions- Comp...](http://www.amazon.com/Visible-Speech-Asian-Interactions- Comparisons/dp/0824812077/)

[3] [http://www.amazon.com/Ideogram-Chinese-Characters- Disembodie...](http://www.amazon.com/Ideogram-Chinese-Characters-Disembodied- Meaning/dp/0824827600/)

[4] [http://readinginthebrain.pagesperso- orange.fr/intro.htm](http://readinginthebrain.pagesperso-orange.fr/intro.htm)

<comment><USER3> Great examples. I recall back when I was grade school in Hong Kong, we learned to read and write Chinese the standard "Mandarin" way. It is like formal speak. But in everyday conversation, people speak the "Cantonese" colloquial way. It is quite weird when I think about it now how everyone speaks "Cantonese" when it's never taught in school. It's like us learning regular English in school but everyone speaks Shakespeare or something (of course it's not that dramatic of a difference).

The written system in Hong Kong uses the standard "Mandarin" saying. Most serious Hong Kong newspapers (business, etc) "speak" the standard "Mandarin" way.

<comment><USER4>
        It's like us learning regular English in school but everyone
        speaks Shakespeare or something (of course it's not that
        dramatic of a difference).

Actually it is a pretty dramatic difference. Cantonese and Mandarin split roughly 1000 years ago, whereas the difference between Shakespearian English (which is considered Early Modern English) and Modern English is only a few hundred years. In addition, Modern English is a descendant of Early Modern English whereas Cantonese and Mandarin are not descendants of one another.

The Chinese writing system tends to obscure these differences because cognates among the different varieties of Chinese are represented using the same characters, even though their pronunciations have diverged considerably. There are vocabulary and grammatical differences as well, though they are not as big.

The difference is more akin to if English speakers had to write in German†, but because they generally don't know how to actually speak German, they would read it using English pronunciation instead. For instance, if you wanted to say "I know that you said that", you might have to write:

        Ich weiß dass du das gesagt hast.

But you would read it "in your own language" as:

        I wit that thou that y-said hast.

This is similar to the current relationship between Cantonese and Mandarin. Cantonese speakers write in Mandarin (i.e. "Standard Chinese") and read it "in Cantonese", even though when speaking, they would really say something almost completely different. When Cantonese speakers actually write in Cantonese, Mandarin speakers generally would have difficulty reading it.

† The difference between English and German actually spans more than 1000 years, but I'm not as familiar with other closer Germanic languages with which to provide a good example.

<comment><USER5> _" Cantonese and Mandarin split roughly 1000 years ago, whereas the difference between Shakespearian English (which is considered Early Modern English) and Modern English is only a few hundred years."_

While I think (second hand - I have no deep familiarity with either language) that your broader point holds, this particular bit is weaker than it might be read. While the split happened longer ago, there are more day-to-day attempts to communicate between native speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin than between native speakers of Modern and Shakespearean English. I could see this having an effect on the ongoing development of each language in a way that might leave them closer together than they would otherwise be. (Shakespearean English probably does have some continuing impact on Modern English, but I think we can be fairly confident that there's no influence the other way).

<comment><USER4>
        I could see this having an effect on the ongoing
        development of each language in a way that might leave
        them closer together than they would otherwise be.

Yes, since Mandarin had been established as the Standard Chinese in the early 20th century, there definitely are effects that have ended up bringing Cantonese closer to Mandarin in terms of vocabulary and grammar.

For instance, if I take my previous example further, if such a situation existed with English and German, the words "wit" and "thou" might have ended up being more common in spoken English, or at least considered more formal rather than archaic. Certain grammatical constructions might also end up being more common, such as the continued use of the y- prefix in past participles.

I'm already stretching this analogy more that I should, but hopefully it gives a better idea of the relationship between Cantonese and Mandarin.

<comment><USER4> I also wanted to add a note that this effects how various Chinese speakers think of Chinese as a language.

Many Mandarin speakers see Mandarin as being equal to "the Chinese language" and often think of Cantonese as being "merely a dialect" of Mandarin because Cantonese speakers appear to read and write the way they do (even though the aforementioned examples show that this is really not the case), and they are not really exposed to the more major differences that would exist if Cantonese speakers actually wrote the way they spoke.

Cantonese speakers are more aware that they don't write the way they speak, but because the Chinese writing system only reflects the lexical and grammatical differences rather than the pronunciation differences (even though most of the differences are in the latter), many Cantonese speakers end up considering the written language as being a "formal" version of their language rather than a different language altogether. For this reason, many Cantonese speakers also consider Cantonese to be a dialect as well; however, they consider both Cantonese and Mandarin to be dialects of "Chinese" rather than Cantonese being a dialect of Mandarin.

Linguistically speaking, because spoken Cantonese and Mandarin are generally completely unintelligible to each other, they should be considered separate languages, but the the writing system ends up obscuring these differences. There are also political implications if Cantonese were considered a separate language because of Chinese nationalism tends to see that as a slippery slope towards separatism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cantonese native speaker here. Just want to state that the definitions for the expression 飛象過河 (An elephant flies across the river)

1\. To break a rule 2\. To reach across the table for food

are both a reference to a rule in Chinese chess stating that 象 (elephant) is a defensive piece and cannot cross the river, with the latter being more of a metaphor to describe someone who reaches across the table for food, which is considered a bad table manner.

</comment><comment><USER7> Pieter Bruegel - Netherlandish Proverbs (1559)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs)

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't speak Chinese at all, but my understanding is that the writing is common, only the sounds vary from Mandarin to Cantonese. So how does a piece of writing like this help to preserve Cantonese? I would think that would take a song or spoken prose or something audible to maintain the Cantonese dialect. In five hundred years, if Cantonese speaking people have disappeared, will Mandarin speakers be able to read this graphic?

<comment><USER3> Cantonese speaker here. These are Cantonese (the region) proverbs much like "Bob's Your Uncle" is a quintessentially British saying that Americans wouldn't understand.

On another note, mainland China (including Canton) actually uses simplified Chinese writing (which came out from the Deng Xiao Ping era) whereas Hong Kong specifically maintians the traditional writing. The difference is literally less strokes and simplification of the characters. The infographic here uses the traditional writing. Personally I feel the two writings are mostly close enough that people should be able to guess what the other means. And AFAIK, it's a 1-to-1 mapping anyway.

<comment><USER9> In the meantime, Taiwan maintains traditional Chinese writing while using Mandarin for speech. Table for clarity:

       Simplified + Mandarin -> Mainland China
       Traditional + Cantonese -> Hong Kong, Macau
       Traditional + Mandarin -> Taiwan

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember my mom teaching me the phrase "like dragging a cow up a tree" when I was little, and I was never sure whether she was serious. I was very excited to see it captured here! Mom, I'm sorry for not trusting you.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hilariously effective education. It's also a great display of the Cantonese' history, culture, and (wise) humor. Wonderful!

</comment><comment><USER12> Those sound clips are killing the page load...

Aside from that this is quite good. I feel like some of these proverbs could be quoted here on HN comment threads.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's missing my favorite one: [http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/45161/](http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/45161/)

</comment><comment><USER14> When I was in elementary school we had one of these for English proverbs. I checked on Google images but don't see anything like it.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. " -Confucius

</comment><comment><USER16> "Use a little knife to saw down a tree" is wonderful and relevant to the audience here.

<comment><USER17> I would never have guessed the actual meaning of that. It sounds negative, as if it would mean "using the wrong (underpowered) tool for the job", but I'm guess I'm taking it too literally!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Shaka, when the walls fell.

</comment><comment><USER19> 笋嘢!

</comment><comment><USER20> up vote from hk!

</comment><comment><USER21> as a Hongkonger here, karma to support</comment>


Brace yourself: the most disruptive phase of globalization is just beginning - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/854257/brace-yourself-the-most-disruptive-phase-of-globalization-is-just-beginning/ <comment><USER2> My way of understanding the challenge of trade: Capital can move far more quickly than people. A factory can move to a new location far more quickly than factory workers can move to new jobs.

I generally favor free trade because I think it helps people. But let's remember than in the end our priority is people, not capital. The latter exists only to serve the former.

</comment><comment><USER3> >Amongst economists, a belief in free trade is totemic. But, while trade makes countries better off, it does not raise all boats… the benefits from trade are unequally spread across individuals and time.

If I understand correctly, this is what taxes are supposed to fix. Free trade generates wealth, taxes ensure that the wealth is somewhat distributed.

> We shouldn't try and protect jobs; we should protect workers.

... and use the taxes to retrain, provide a safety net, etc. From TFA:

>We have to look for inspiration from northern European countries who have comprehensive retraining, help with housing, help with relocation. Typically they have the unions, governments, and companies working together to try and keep the social cohesion. It doesn't always work, but at least they try and most people feel that the government is helping them.</comment>


Building a Pseudo-Infinite Tweet Scroller with jQuery and Masonry - <AUTHOR> http://blog.divshot.com/post/34170824026/building-a-pseudo-infinite-tweet-scroller-with-jquery

<comment><USER2> thanks for open-sourcing this!</comment>


A Callout: Parts for an Iron Lung - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2017/11/25/a-callout-parts-for-an-iron-lung/ <comment><USER2> I read the gizmodo article when it came out and it really seems that the only reason these machines are still running is because the few remaining users have found technically-minded friends that can do the tinkering required to keep them running. I wondered at the time if there couldn't be some sort of crowd sourced effort to make replacement parts and help iron lung users find people to service their machines. But the liability associated with doing so seems to be enormous in my mind. I doubt good samaritan laws would protect someone in the slightest if they volunteered to service an iron lung, the user of the iron lung later died, and then the family decided to sue. One would hope that the family would understand the situation enough not to do so, be is there honestly any way to such a situation from happening?

If my grandmother used an iron lung I would absolutely do everything I personally could to keep it running, including servicing it and making replacement parts. But the thought of doing that for a stranger absolutely terrifies me.

<comment><USER3> The link out in the story to the Therac 25 that over irradiated and killed several people with a software bug seems to strengthen your point.

[https://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/killed-by-a-machine-the- ther...](https://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/killed-by-a-machine-the-therac-25/)

I'd heard of it before, but hadn't heard it was controlled by a PDP-11. Apparently running some bare metal ASM, not multics or unix ([http://courses.cs.vt.edu/professionalism/Therac_25/Side_bar_...](http://courses.cs.vt.edu/professionalism/Therac_25/Side_bar_1.html))

<comment><USER4> "It is clear from the AECL documentation on the modifications that the software allows concurrent access to shared memory, that there is no real synchronization aside from data stored in shared variables, and that the "test" and "set" for such variables are not indivisible operations. Race conditions resulting from this implementation of multitasking played an important part in the accidents."

To think all the reasons I ever disliked working with raw threads, could _kill_ someone.

I know it was 1984 but if software did this today, the developers would be torn limb to limb as this is practically an interview problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Discussion of logistical details on Twitter:

[https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/933619850806620167](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/933619850806620167) (Potentially NSFW as this is Naomi Wu, aka @RealSexyCyborg)

</comment><comment><USER6> Conceptually these machines are simple. Seals, diaphragms, a few moving parts. Doesn't seem that it should be to difficult to fabricate parts that are no longer made by the original manufacturer.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are more-modern negative pressure ventilators on the market.[1] I would think that from a legal perspective, it would be better to raise money to buy this woman a new ventilator, rather than subjecting her to cobbled-together replacement parts.

1\. [http://portalung.com/](http://portalung.com/)

<comment><USER8> Maybe the people who need iron longs require something with enough oomph rather than something small like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I still don't understand why these iron lung users can't switch to using positive pressure ventilators? The entire medical ventilator market uses positive pressure because it eliminates the need to surround the patient with costly pressure vessels, which dramatically improves the quality of life of the patient.

<comment><USER5> There are multiple articles readily found about complications of using positive pressure:

[https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/581344_7](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/581344_7)

[http://www.mdedge.com/ecardiologynews/dsm/5224/hospital- medi...](http://www.mdedge.com/ecardiologynews/dsm/5224/hospital- medicine/complications-mechanical-ventilation)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2199002](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2199002)

To my mind, this is actually related:

[https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/54084/Why-I-m-Not-a- Fan-...](https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/54084/Why-I-m-Not-a-Fan-of- Positive-Pressure-Mechanical-Ventilation)

One of the problems you run into with any lung related mechanical devices is the need for proper sterilization. From what I gather, this is much less of an issue with negative pressure ventilation.

People in iron lungs are people with fundamentally compromised immune systems. Exposing them to germs forced into their lungs by positive pressure while potentially damaging their lung tissues in the process strikes me as a great way to give them a deadly infection, sooner or later.

<comment><USER9> Are you sure they are substantially immunocompromised? they're opening and closing their mouths and breathing through their noses on a regular basis while exposed to room air. There is no bacteria filtration like there would be with a properly configured positive pressure ventilator's circuit. The mucous membranes in the airway and nasal passages actually provide a significant amount of filtration themselves, and some circuit configurations are non- invasive which enables these natural filters to function.

There is potential for barotrauma in improperly configured devices, especially with volume-controlled ventilation, but it's possible to configure the device to ventilate safely, otherwise we wouldn't use them. Modern devices do have safety features like high pressure cutoffs and direct pressure controls which can prevent barotrauma. Some of these have to be configured correctly by the clinician for each patient.

Regarding the link to positive pressure HVAC, I'm not sure what that has to do with medical ventilation. HVAC provides a constant flow into a room, but medical ventilation cycles to an inspiratory pressure or inspiratory tidal volume repeatedly either on a patient trigger or on a set timing schedule.

I'm still really curious if there are any Respiratory Therapists or Physicians who can speak to this?

<comment><USER5> From what I understand, they are partially paralyzed. Every partially paralyzed individual I have personally met was pretty ill, basically. I have a compromised immune system. Being around paralysis victims is a big problem for me.

So, yes, I feel quite confident. Though what I know and what I can prove are very different things.

Edit: I will add that I have come to believe that breathing problems inherently impair the immune system. Oxygen is one of the things the body uses to kill stuff. If you can't breathe, you are pretty vulnerable to microscopic warfare. (Another thing I know but probably can't prove, fwiw.)

<comment><USER10> You find that paralyzed people are immunocompromised or harbor infections at a greater probability than the general population?

I wonder if this is due to lower rates of lymph circulation, which relies on the body being in motion. The lymphatic system is a key part of the immune system.

<comment><USER5> Yes, in my experience, they are chronically infected and it is dangerous for me to be around them.

I imagine there are quite a few factors, but I think that is a good thought. Walking a great deal -- sometimes on the order of many hours a day -- has played a large role in my successful efforts to improve my health. I am convinced that moving lymph is a very big part of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> rubber gaskets are easy to manufacture if you have a mold for them. It's really awful that philips stopped making them without giving the mold to someone. With the mold, you can make a rubber gasket with nothing more than a kitchen stove and the raw materials.

<comment><USER12> > _without giving the mold to someone_

It's possible they could be called up to retrieve the specifications and possibly the mold. It's not necessarily the case that they've destroyed or lost track of them. Notwithstanding that, it's a vacuum vessel, there are only so many ways the gasket could be designed. I'm not qualified to design a part like that, but surely there are many people who are.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you make your side projects profitable ? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Similar to yesterday's "Ask HN: Share your profitable side project" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22396721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22396721) and the popular "Ask HN: One-person SaaS apps that are profitable?" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19701783](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19701783)

</comment><comment><USER3> Focus on making something useful for your users. Don't have high expectations of profits immediately. Focus on making it a good product, and hopefully the users will come, followed by some profit after that.

</comment><comment><USER4> ask people to pay for them</comment>


The Unacknowledged Convergence of Open Source, Open Access, Open Science (2005) - <AUTHOR> https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1265/1185 <comment><USER2> "Opening" things to facilitate the flow of information is necessary to reduce to costs of increasing complexity. It is the best tool we have to hold off the collapse of our increasingly complex society (as hypothesized by Joseph Tainter) which would come from the ever growing costs and shrinking returns that come from additional complexity.

Now also need open (transparent, accountable) government and industry.

</comment><comment><USER3> We need much more open science though to tackle pressing issues of the world quickly. Although it is not that easy to do in a practical way. Every country/company/group will want strategic asymmetry that benefits them, this is how the world works for better or worse.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> NOTE: This is not my article. This is just a reformat and mirror of a paper by John Willinsky because the original link renders slow.</comment>